Modesty and Madness (18 photos)

A PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION OF PATTI SMITH & BOB DYLAN

The musical works of Patti Smith and Bob Dylan often address themes of
heartbreak and alienation, with lyrics that evoke vivid mental images and
powerful emotions. Many of these photos were produced in a decidedly low-tech way -
using crude sets, primitive cameras, and darkroom manipulations - to connect
them with the raw energy of the musicians' earliest works.

The word alone hardly attested to its magnificence nor conveyed the emotion it produced. The sight of it generated an urge I had no words for, a desire to speak of the swan, to say something of its whiteness…

I struggled to find words to describe my own sense of it. Swan, I repeated, not entirely satisfied, and I felt a twinge, a curious yearning, imperceptible to passersby, my mother, the trees, or the clouds.

- Patti Smith, from the book "Just Kids" (National Book Award winner)

Beneath the Southern Cross

Oh to be
Not anyone
Gone
This maze of being
Skin.
. . . . .
Where gods get lost
Beneath
The southern cross

Cross over boy
Crossover

- Patti Smith, from the album "Gone Again"

Trespasses

And she pinned back her hair
Shouldered with care the burdens that were his
Mending the coat that hung on the post
In heart remembering

Trespasses stretch like broken fences
Winding as they may
Trespasses stretch like broken fences
Hope to mend them one day

And her time was to come, called to her son
This your song to sing
All of our debts wove with regrets
Upon a golden string

And he found the old coat hung on a post
Like a ragged wing
And took as his own the sewn and unsown
Joyfully whistling

- Patti Smith, from the album "Trampin’"

Lo and Beholden

In the palace there was wild reverie
and the look in your eyes
as I dropped veil after veil
was drunken desire
the dove calls and God notes it all
the naked truth
here is my veil the seventh and last
it will cost you
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lo and beholden
why don’t you give it up
lo and beholden
come on you know it’s true
lo and beholden
oh I’m beholden to you

- Patti Smith, from the album "Gung Ho"

1959

China was a tempest and madness overflowed
The lama was a young man and watched his world in flames
Taking glory down by the edge of clouds
It was a crying shame
Another lost horizon Tibet the fallen star
Wisdom and compassion crushed in the land of Shangri-la

- Patti Smith, from the album "Peace and Noise"

Girl from the North Country

Well, if you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Please see for me if her hair hangs long,
If it rolls and flows all down her breast.
Please see for me if her hair hangs long,
That’s the way I remember her best.

I’m a-wonderin’ if she remembers me at all
Many times I’ve often prayed
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day

So if you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

- Bob Dylan, from the albums "The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan" and "Nashville Skyline"

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee 'fore I go
To the valley below

- Bob Dylan, from the album "Desire"

The Coral Sea

“What is the point?” he cried out. “What is the point?”
And the heavy mists, a confusion of salt, drew about him
…
“What is the point? he whispered. “What is the point?”
And the heavy mists drew about him
…
“You sir, you are the point.”

- Patti Smith, from the book "The Coral Sea"

Changing of the Guards

Sixteen years
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves
Desperate men, desperate women divided
Spreading their wings ’neath the falling leaves

Gentlemen, he said
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the
changing of the guards

- Bob Dylan, from the album "Street-Legal"

Poppies

And then they laid her on the table
She connected with the inhaler
And the needle was shifting like crazy
She was she was completely still
It was like a painting of a vase
She just lay there and the gas traveled fast
Thru the dorsal spine and down and around
The anal cavity her cranium it was really great man
The gas had inflicted her entire spine
With the elements of a voluptuous disease
With a green vapor made her feet light
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hey Sheba hey Salome hey Venus eclipsing my way ah
You’re vessel every woman is a vessel is evasive is aquatic
Everyone silver ecstatic platinum disk spinning

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

- Bob Dylan, from the album "Highway 61 Revisited"

Masters Of War

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead

- Bob Dylan, from the album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"

Horses

Horses

The boy disappeared Johnny fell on his knees
started crashing his head against the locker
started crashing his head against the locker
started laughing hysterically
When suddenly Johnny
gets the feeling
he's being surrounded by
horses horses horses horses
coming in all directions
white shining silver studs with their nose in flames
He saw horses horses horses
horses horses horses horses horses.

[In the heart of man] The waves were coming in
Like Arabian stallions gradually lapping into sea horses
He picked up the blade and he pressed it against
His smooth throat and let it deep in [the veins]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Our lives are now entwined we will four years be together twining
Your nerves the mane of the black shining horse
And my fingers all entwined through your silky hair
I could feel it it was the hair going through my fingers
[Build it build it]
The hairs were like wires going through my body
I that's how I that's how I died

- Patti Smith, from the album "Horses"

Strange Messengers

I looked upon the book of life
tracing the lines of face after face
looking down at their naked feet
bound in chains bound in chains
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
chains of leather chains of gold
men knew it was wrong but they looked away
and led them to toil in fields of white
as they turned their necks to a bitter landscape

Oh the people I hear them calling
am I not a man and a brother
am I not a woman and a sister
we will be heard we will be heard

History sends us such strange messengers
they come down through time
to embrace to enrage
and in their arms even stranger fruit
and they swing from the trees
with their vision in flames
ropes of leather ropes of gold
men knew it was wrong but they looked away
messengers swinging from twisted rope
as they turned their necks to a bitter landscape

- Patti Smith, from the album "Gung Ho"

Wave

I saw I saw you from your balcony window and you were standing there waving at everybody. It was really great because there was about a billion people there, but when I was waving to you, the way your face was, it was so, the way your face was, it made me feel exactly like we’re, it’s not that you were just waving to me, but that we were we were waving to each other.. . . And. Um. I. I just wanted to thank you because you, you really really you made me feel good and, oh, I, it’s nothing. Well I’m just clumsy. No, it’s just a Band-Aid. No, it’s ok. Oh no, I’m always doing. Something’s always happening to me. Well. I’ll be seeing you.
Good-bye. Bye. Good-bye sir. Good-bye papa.

Isabella, all is glowing
Isabella, all is knowing
Isabella, we are dying
Isabella, we are rising

I am the spring the holy ground
I am the seed of mystery
the thorn the veil the face of grace
the brazen image the thief of sleep
the ambassador of dreams
the prince of peace
I am the sword the wound the stain
Scorned transfigured child of Cain
I rend I end I return again
I am the salt the bitter laugh
I am the gas in a womb of light
The evening star the ball of sight
That bleeds that sheds the tears of Christ
Dying and drying as I rise tonight